Chapter 381: Orcish Reincarnation Spell

Since Carlisle wanted to participate, Donald had no objections. After all, though Carlisle could be somewhat unrestrained at times, he was never careless about important tasks. Moreover, he and Abel were indeed the most suitable candidates in their territory to carry out this mission. So Donald instructed them, “Be careful. Although the Macbeth family isn’t a threat, it’s possible there are members of the Church of the Three Glorious Gods involved. I’m not afraid of alerting them, but your safety is a concern for everyone. So you must take these items. Don’t underestimate this simple task—mistakes could lead to serious problems!”
Donald prepared invisibility potions and teleportation scrolls for them, along with several summoning artifacts to use at critical moments to block enemies and create chaos.
Seeing Donald’s concern, Carlisle didn’t say anything but kept it in mind. After taking those items, which he considered trivial, he silently left Twilight Town with Abel without alerting anyone.
After Carlisle left, Donald introduced the High Orcish Sorcerer Chikofield to everyone. Upon learning of this elder who had lived for nearly two thousand years, everyone, including Messel, held him in great respect.
Chikofield, on the other hand, said casually, “There’s no need for formality. I’m just an old bone struggling to survive. If not for Donald’s help, I would still be trapped in the Abyssal World, unable to return! So I plan to stay here for a while. I wonder if Donald and the others welcome me?”
Donald was delighted by the idea of having a High Orcish Sorcerer like Chikofield.
“How could we not welcome you, Senior Chikofield? To us mages, you’re like a living encyclopedia of spells. I even plan to keep you for a while to ask you about the arcane theories from the era of the Great Arcane Empire and the Banai Empire!”
Although Chikofield wasn’t an archmage from the ancient Great Arcane Empire, he was a legitimate archmage who had inherited the traditions and also joined the Magic Empire. He likely understood the similarities and differences between the mage and archmage systems far better than anyone today. After all, having inherited the skills of ancient archmages and experienced the rise and fall of the Magic Empire, even a small memory from his past could help modern people uncover extremely important, previously unknown historical facts!

Moreover, high-level liches are generally creatures of a neutral or friendly faction, devoted to their arcane research and indifferent to external matters. Thus, they cannot be considered ordinary undead; they pose virtually no threat to ordinary people—a fact even the Church of the Gods has to admit, except for a few extreme, pious factions of the Church of the True Gods.

Although the earliest high-level liches were those who fared poorly during the ancient Arcane Empire era or were mages with insufficient talent, they were still extremely powerful compared to ordinary magi today.

So Donald was somewhat pleasantly surprised by Chikofield’s joining. Another legendary powerhouse! Overjoyed, he thought of binding the other party to his war chariot and said to the high-level lich, “Previously, Senior Chikofield, you mentioned regretting choosing to transform into a lich.”

Chikofield nodded in response.

“Indeed. Although becoming a lich allows one to preserve memories and thoughts from being corrupted by negative energy, it lacks the creative power of a human brain. As a result, my strength and research progress have been very limited over the years. This is a common problem among us orthodox high-level liches. Those incomplete, evil liches might be able to go further in the realm of evil, but their achievements are still limited!”

Generally, ancient archmage lords and their subordinate high-level mages possess specialized secret techniques to extend their lifespans—be it legendary spells, legendary alchemical potions, or even super methods to transform themselves into semi-immortal demi-god forms. Thus, the elite of the ancient Arcane Empire hardly had to worry about lifespan. With their strength, living for seven or eight hundred years was not a problem, and hybrid mages with high elf bloodlines could even live beyond a thousand years. Coupled with various methods to extend life, they didn’t need to worry about not having enough time to devote themselves fully to research and experimentation.

However, those mages who fared poorly had difficulty accessing the most elite resources of the ancient Arcane Empire, as the things that could extend life were extremely precious and scarce.

So these mages developed their own unconventional rituals like lich transformation and even invented two sets of theories: the Lich Satchel and the Soul Gem.

The former is a soul container prepared for archmages and those below that ascend to liches; as long as the soul chest remains intact, the lich’s soul endures. The soul gem, on the other hand, is a soul carrier unique to liches at the demi-god level. It is far more than just a soul container like the soul chest—it is also a powerful artifact that enhances spellcasting. Theoretically, a demi-god lich can possess as many as ten soul gems, meaning as long as one remains, the demi-god lich is immortal.

Of course, the materials for these soul artifacts are rarer even than those used to create divine artifacts. The most recorded demi-god liches only had nine soul gems at most.

Some later mages acquired the knowledge of the lich transformation ritual. Although they were unable to carry out the full transformation due to insufficient abilities or incompleteinheritance, through the ingenuity of numerous mages, a weakened version of the transformation could be successfully performed.

The liches resulting from this weakened ritual do not possess the strength of those archmages who succeeded in their transformations—they can only reach the level of a grand archmage at most. Their own level temporarily drops by one rank after transforming into a lich, though it can be enhanced over time to restore or even surpass their original strength.

The most significant flaw is that these incomplete transformations lose the ability to protect liches from negative energy, so such liches are generally considered to exist only in the realm of darkness and evil!

Although Chikofield is part of those who have received the authentic archmageinheritance, their inheritance has become incomplete since the fall of the Archmage Empire. Aside from the complete lich transformation ritual, he does not possess any other arcane methods to extend life.

“I learned from ancient texts that the great archmages developed a fallback plan for those archmages who transformed into higher-level liches—a way to restore their normal physical bodies and souls, allowing them to continue exploring the mysteries of the world as humans!”

Chikofield said with emphasis, “Are you referring to the Lich Rebirth Ritual?”